Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

Sheldon Wolin is gone now and that is a shame for it would be such a delight to read his rendering of our very current time (2017) that so many others are trying to explain. I imagine a séance as one catches in old movies where the collective sit in a dark smoked filled room while the master/mistress seeks a trance… ‘Ah’ he is here. What great Master have you to say? “I told you so.” Publishing this work in 2008 he lays out the character of the American society and where its prided Democracy has gone; most recently under the reign of George I-II as he calls it but the roots travel far back to earlier administrations and their untruths and proclivities. What he finds is Democracy Incorporate, Inverted Totalitarianism, and Superpower – a contrived Imperial thrust housing perpetual wars. One thesis is: Concentrated corporate power and democracy are incompatible. These are heavy charges, is this not yet the world’s leading democracy? This work could have been edited to a tighter presentation but his language is so memorable that would have been a loss. Here he explains what we do sense has happened but can not quite grasp: “The crisis, it seems, is that there was no crisis. In its literal meaning a crisis is “a turning point.” Adapting the formulation “a turning point but no crisis” to the condition I have designated “inverted totalitarianism,” we might ask, why does the existence of that turning point go unrecognized? how are the facts of radical political change concealed when there is no evidence, say, of a coup or revolutionary overthrow? how can we recognize that the country is at the political turning point of inverted totalitarianism?” (pp. 211-212) "“The development that is emblematic of the economic polity is the extent to which finance has come to define politics. Millions of dollars from corporations are systematically poured into the legislative process and electoral campaigns. State actors have become dependent more on corporate power than on their own citizens. Even a citizen-army is becoming a thing of the past, replaced by professionals skilled in the latest weaponry developed by corporate technology. The military has been absorbed into the corporate economy (defense contracts, weapons procurement, retired generals become executives) and its culture.” (p. 589) The topic Superpower, incorporating Globalization and Militarization have become more recognized by the citizenry but here too you will delight in his analysis; other would prefer the title “Pax Americana” as a gentler cover, but that behavior he explains well. The original was published in 2008, indeed a crisis period as it has proven; re-released with a new preface by the author, 2010 and a new edition, with an introduction by Chris Hedges in 2017. The footnotes are as informative and entertaining as the text. The current administration is pushing the envelope right along and one can only hope its Superpower is somehow controlled. The bright side as Wolin would see it is that the citizenry does seem to be getting the message that we need to pay attention to where we are going. Take the Professor’s course!

I had not read anything by Sheldon Wolin prior to this book, and I picked it up because I was intrigued by what was apparently his own invented phraseology - "inverted totalitarianism." With these two words, Professor Wolin gave a name to something that those of us who pay close attention to global political and economic trends have glimpsed on many occasions but could never quite see in full. Indeed, this subject is so new and so little explored that it would be best to view Professor Wolin's book as our first landing point on an as-yet-unexplored continent. The continent is a dark place where shadowy plutocrats, corporate oligarchs and political prostitutes who aspire to admittance in the plutocracy conspire to keep the reins of power and control out of the hands of "the people" and in the hands of those who abuse that power and control for their own selfish ends. Wolin is careful, however, not to mis-cast "the people" in the role of entirely innocent victim. As Wolin understands and explains, each of us has a responsibility to be curious enough about our world to peer through the fog of propaganda in search of elusive truths, and to assault the walls of secrecy that insulate the powerful few from the powerless many. This book should be viewed as a call to arms, even though, in a very real sense, the war is already over and we, the people, have already lost. The war for transnational corporate hegemony has been marked here at home by the relentless dismantling of an already shaky scaffolding of American liberal democracy. Being constructed in its place is a virtually impenetrable authoritarian fortress protecting (and shielding from view) an unholy alliance among self-serving economic elites, self-appointed intellectual elites and self-promoting politicians who feign statesmanship while leaving bewildered rank and file Americans standing on the platform as the prosperity train pulls away from the station. The importance of this book, and this line of inquiry, cannot be over-stated. It is not an entirely easy read, but that is because it is so densely packed with vital information - it's like eating an incredibly nutrient-rich energy bar for your brain. Pick it up and open your eyes to the real state of the world around you - if it doesn't cause you to jump into action, shame on you.

At the end of a long, distinguished career as one of America's foremost political philosophers, Sheldon Wolin takes a hard look at the current political system in America and arrives at the profoundly uncomfortable conclusion that America has become a "managed democracy," where the will of the American people is effectively removed from political, social and economic decision-making. He sees the country firmly set on its way toward becoming a system of "inverted totalitarianism" where democratic institutions are only empty shells and "democracy' has become a myth which in practice is completely controlled by transnational corporate elites and their willing executioners. You think it can't happen here? According to Wolin, it already happened, if you carefully define what "it" is. The term "Inverted Totalitarianism" addresses the obvious rejoinder many people might make: Isn't America still a democracy? Where was the Machtergreifung--the coup or takeover of power? Wolin asserts that it does not require brown shirts marching in the streets for a totalitarian takeover to take place. In Inverted Totalitarianism, the Fuehrer is the product of the system (George W. Bush), not the architect; it does not celebrate the state but uses an informal network of corporate and political power. Inverted Totalitarianism does not mobilize its populations (the way communism and the Nazis mobilized theirs) with endless parades and speeches, but it keeps them quiet with Reality TV and consumer culture; it does not require unanimity among the people, but fosters a splintering of public opinion, etc. Still, the end result is a de-fanged democracy, laying prostrate before a mighty corporate elite in love with its own power. In fact, the author avers that there was no intention of abolishing democracy in America. "Inverted totalitarianism" is the result, the grand total, of an infinite number of small actions that have accumulated in American history in recent decades. He also delivers one of the best accounts I have read so far of the counter-intuitive alliance between the Christian Right and American corporate elites, who seem so different from each other on first look. Yet what these two groups share, according to Wolin, is a deep veneration for sacred texts and objects (the bible, the constitution, the market) and a dynamic vision to change current society for an idealized past/apocalyptic future that needs to be realized by radical means. If the reader already felt an inkling that something like this is going on, Wolin's book provides helpful categories of analysis to put it all together. According to Wolin, elitist republicanism and democracy always led an uncomfortable coexistence in American history. What tilted the country toward elite rule was "Superpower"--the vision of unlimited American military might abroad, which was created during World War II and fostered by the Cold War. "Superpower" demands unlimited freedom to act in secrecy by a small elite and can justify its actions with reason of state. 9/11 was the moment "Superpower" took over decisively. In the introduction to the paperback edition, Wolin states that Barack Obama sees himself as providing change in the sense of a corrective, not as a radical change of direction, which many of his supporters, and Wolin himself, would have liked. Therefore the 2008 elections did not signal a significant departure from managed democracy. Writing in the summer of 2011, it's hard for me to disagree with this assessment. On the other hand, this book will probably not change many people's minds. While Wolin relies on close reading of a few documents--such as the Federalist Papers--and makes excellent use of scholarly secondary literature in political science and history, his case is broad and assertive, rather than deep and persuasive. In order to fill in details the reader will have to consult other sources. For that reason, readers who already believe Wolin will readily agree with him, but others will demand more evidence and a more detailed account of how all of this came about. My tip: Look at the footnotes and keep reading. Wolin does not offer much in terms of how to change all of this. Writers such as Chris Hedges use him to argue that essentially all is lost and what is left is peaceful, physical resistance. Wolin does notice that Superpower has been waning lately and that more and more Americans simply don't want to sacrifice more at home for ludicrous adventures abroad. As 1989 showed, a whole political system can collapse at a moment's notice. First cracks in the coalition between "Tea Party" and corporate conservatives can also be observed. So maybe we should not despair yet and instead work at mobilizing a counter-public sphere and alternative centers of power. On the other hand, watching the daily news emanating from Washington, it's hard not to become deeply pessimistic. The book is a bit rambling and should have been cut by about 1/3, but like a doctor who diagnoses a disease, Wolin gives a name to phenomena many Americans have noted but could not quite put into context. For that reason the book provides a useful service and should be read widely.

Considering the ideological bitch-fest (I do not use that term whimsically), once again, like the Cold War before the New Order, all about the God Almighty Dollar, Elmer Gantry verson 3.0, sometimes those who are naively political and dependent on ideology would never know about this amazing book. Were in not to an introduction to perhaps the greatest political ethicist since the radical C. Wright Mills in the 1940s and 1950s that came through another, equally amazing author, John Ralston Saul, I would never have known that, aside from Tony Judt, a Socialist-leaning examiner of the odd European hybrid synthesis between Communism and Democracy, Dr. Sheldon S. Wolin's amazing, and frightening, observations. Meet the New Boss. Otherwise known as MGMT, not so much a drug as a hierarchical dictator with no sense beyond the exceptionally-limited equation of exclusivity that occurs between buyer and seller, MGMT stands in the middle, between the American people and the people's government. Especially saddening to me as I read this book is that Wolin refuses to mince words, pull punches or otherwise detail anything without philosophic exactiude pop politicos like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter, among many, including the rodeo clown, Glenn Beck, now an exclusive resident of Grapevine, Texas, a sort of Kow Loon village of looney cattle who, like Beckster, are literally infatuated with the making of mony, is that these types of books are drowned-out by utter noise as the udder of the Big Black Kow Loon is labeled onto every street sign and traffic light as if to tell us which signs to beleve and which to consider outright lies or merely aversions. Kowloon is a Chinese City that stands right across the narrow land border between Hong Kong, home of King Kong, and mainland China. Like the current and somewhat tawdry state-of-affairs now coming online in the former vaudeville act once known as the United States of America, Kowloon is a sort of half-and-have dose of the kind of milk adults might drink. The little babies who cry foul when a Duck Dyansty superstar decides for us all "what's what" regarding "the gay" would really cry like the Black Swan in Swan Lake after reading Wolin's incisive commentary of an infliction that is coming dangerously close to Fascism in America. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Liberals like me, among the frequent scapegoats of the hard-core and full-tilt boogie of the Conservative war machine and agitprop monopoly, are often not heard. Wolin examines why this is so. In Wolin-world, after all, a democracy cannot become a revolutionary Communist state without first kicking itself free of social welfare programming and leaving it up to "two party self-regulation" rather than the more familiar three-party regulation linking business and politics through the law. The thrill-kill cultists of the Tea Party would rather not accept the almost now-ancient tradition of compromise, and are unwilling to even budge an inch in their reprisal of whatever it is the Liberals and Progressives managed to do to their green little garden world. Wolin treats this phenomenon quite untactfully, mainly because, like many of us in the U.S., Wolin is dumbstruck by the shock-and-awe tactics the Conservative Right uses to literally attempt to drown the federal government in a bathtub, courtesies to the wishes of one Grover Norquist, the scion of the Polaroid fortune, no pun about "polarity" intended here. Apparently, Norquist, and many very rich men (and women) does not appreciate being required to do anything requiring something as "antiquated" as "nobelese oblige" an ancient parliamentary tradition in which the very rich indeed do help those with less than they. In other words, the very rich, in a sort of hidden and enshadowed class war of their own, want to liberate themselves from any and all public responsibility that might require them to actually care about others. Wolin, like Saul, describes this as a sort of Age of Antisocial Freedom: the freedom to act irresponsibly in public and to expect others to simply listen and to never speak truth to power. Why has the necessary communication, something mutual between government and the polity, has been bashed like an aging Buick is a question we all should ask. In steps MGMT, the mediator, the living television set in the room, an entity that wants us to look-see but never consider or contemplate the inclusive and often unintended consequences of an aristocracy or oligharchy that has so separated itself from the concerns of the widening underclass as to literally begin to resemble the Court of Louis the Sixteenth, the unlucky French King beheaded in the Great French Terror as the French peasantry, inspired by the American revolution, the very first anti-imperialist revolution against a much more powerful enemy, could not find its sense of "demos", a sort of mutually shared political identity that allows all to be included regardless of ideology. In Wolin's view, ideology is the perfect tool to smash the state. Once the battle-cry of the Weather Underground in the early 1970s, while Liberals are caught in the middle of a battle between two extremes, right and left, "fools to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you", an old Scot song from the Seventies that indeed describes what is happening: a widening gap between those with "special" interests that seemingly have been allowed to override the necessary connection between the citizenry and the government. In other words, we are becoming a money-obsessed contemporary version of ancient Rome, not so much famous for the supposed immoral infractions of excess but mainly for its summary excess in gleaning all the gold and hauling it back to Rome to do for the Romans what the Romans wanted to do with the money: Leave the body, take the canolli. Americans do feel a distortion coming on, as our freedoms and shared values begin to vanish into the Leviathan maw of "special" interests (I almost feel like highlighting "special" in kind of bubble letters like kids in the Sixties did on their brown-paper book covers, but what is the use, it's so "special", isn't it?) and slowly replaced by more prevailing values such as "selfies" and "self", of "me, myself and I" and no one else included in the exchange called, for some odd reason, "the market". Yeah. Piggy has been taking it to "market" for quite some time, hasn't it? And that is the point: what use is "fairness", "liberty", "justice for all" and "equality" if the true-false equation of irony is "self", "more to self" and "Rat Pack One to Rat Pack Two, CB good buddy come in...."? Oddly, the old Beat poet puts this quite succinctly: How Long? How long must we wait for fairness? How Long is not a city in China, either. When "ambition", "power", "endless expansion" and "privatized imperialism" replace the values of a democratic republic, something is terribly wrong. Yes it is. The "economic power" has now spilled-over into the "political equation" and the "exclusivity" of mutual assured creative destruction has replaced the idea of "disinterestedness", the other now-forgotten political tradition of letting-go of one's political ideologies once the game of the campaign is over. Then what? Why not try statesmanship? Oh, never mind. That is not the "answer" to Grover Norquist's seeming need to give the nation a bath. That is "bad" in German, and Norquist should know this. The fact he probably does does not make life any better for the poor. But who cares? If the special interests get theirs, why bother with idiotic concepts like "honesty is the best policy"? Ideology is a weapon that uses irony: What is with the theocratic wing of the Conservative movement doing obsessed with money anyway? Isn't Mammon supposed to be off-limits to Christians? Never mind. No one is going to listen to that in a world of "prosperity gospel" and creationism anyway. The prevailing winds of the political weather report is that, with ideology, others do not matter anymore. What is more important? Helping a 92-year-old shut-in get food? Or the manufacture of golf balls? Fox decides, you agree. Wolin does take some pot-shots at the U.S. financial sector, about the only sector that seems to be successful, but he is not going to bother taking any prisoners. Why should he? This is a desperate situation involving America's poor, more and more being disenfranchised from the "money game" and the tactics of "encirclement" than ever: Put it in the middle and then get behind it. Use loud volleys of shame and guilt, outrage and hide the tomfoolery. This is an old "divide and conquer" tactic, and if "media" is MGMT, then the crucial connection between government and the people has literally been aborted. The cord? Cut. Severed. No wonder people are angry. Wolin then criticizes the now-infamous Bush/Cheney lie machine that led many down the primrose path of what could or could not be a proxy war with our old enemies: The theocratic empires of the Old World. Are we the Antchrist now? The collection plates need to be fed. How would it feel, if the churches can handle the poor, if the good Christians, averse to taxation as theft, to be forced to pay 70 percent of their income to feed the people they want to indoctrinate in a sort of "equal opportunity enslavement"? Nothing better than to shame the enemy on public television, especially when, suddenly, out of nowhere, public responsibility to be at least a little aware of others and their shared interests is to be obliterated with an ideology of absolutism? I highly reccommend this book. Occupy Wall Street: This book has your name written all over it. Managed democracy. Sound familiar? MGMT has entered the building like Elvis. Never shall the people meet their government without the real nanny in the room. It's called MGMT. Brought to you by whatever.

Sheldon Wolin's "Democracy Incorporated" is the most insightful book on the state of American politics that I've read over the last several years. I read at least three or four books related to political people or issues every year, and I believe Wolin's book has the most precise and accurate insight into the morphing of our democracy into what he calls inverted totalitarianism that I've read thus far. Since reading this book, I'm beginning to hear other political chroniclers refer to the kinds of political decisions and conditions that Wolin so succinctly points out in this book. The current hearings and discussions relating to health-care reform in the U.S. is a perfect example of how our politicians ignore the wishes of the people in order to carry out the agendas of the corporations. For those who believe our country is lost to us, this book is the one to read to get a crystal clear discussion of how that has evolved and how it plays out without our real understanding of what is going on. But this is not an easy read--this book is for those who are able and willing to read a highly intelligent, sophisticated, and erudite discussion of the transformation of a democracy into something that we should indeed be concerned about. MFClifford

I did not major in political science, and yet after having read this book deliberately, reading the footnotes, and looking up the references therein I feel like Sheldon Wolin has provided an educations worth a few semesters. He makes an excellent presentation of the transformations we have undergone and the silent nature ( in public discourse ) of the executions. Sheldon is a master at using the best words to express his ideas. I had to look up a lot of words, and thankfully I had my Kindle version of this book, so I had dictionaries and Wikipedia at my fingertips. In the course of presenting his thesis, Sheldon provides a master crash course of the history of our democratic involvement, or, to be more exact, the demos' struggles and efforts for their inclusion in politics and for the realization of a democratic political process, and their struggles against the elites in order to claim an equal voice in the political power and process. Finally, Sheldon Wolin presents his thesis with more than enough evidence supporting that we indeed are in an inverted totalitarian system.

As a fan of Chalmers Johnson (RIP) and Andrew Bacevich, as well as a former academic, I was looking forward to a book on this topic from an author of Wolin's stature. However, after attempting to read this book, I returned it. Here's the good, the mediocre, the bad, and the unacceptable -- based on my reading the first couple of chapters (in "the unacceptable", I explain why I stopped): The good. The premise and thesis: that US democracy is being threatened by the very institutions that are often most closely associated with it, such as free enterprise. Wolin links this to other "totalitarian" tendencies and gives a nicely grounded exposition. This is an interesting twist on a common progressive theme and deserves to be developed in depth. The mediocre. The writing drags along and feels weak. It does not have the power of a Vidal or Roy, nor the breeziness of Bacevich, nor the intense fact-gathering and relentness of Chalmers, nor the academic rigor of Wolin's early work. It reads as if we should expect some big insight in just a few more pages, but then the chapters just deflate. The bad. As some other reviews have noted, the concept of "inverted totalitarianism" is extremely awkward. Wolin attempts early in the book to show that the US today has some inverted parallels to fascist states such as Nazi Germany. But this argument is strained at best and off-putting at worst. There is a fallacy known sarcastically as "reductio ad hitlerum" and Wolin comes uncomfortably close to engaging in that. That's too bad because that whole argument is irrelevant and a distraction: the core concept here is better expressed as "corporate plutocracy" or "free market dominance" or something like that. There is no reason that could not be explicated quite well on its own (cf. C. Johnson or D. Harvey for similar concepts). Trying to express "totalitarianism" (which the US is not, but is rather differently threatened) and "inverted" (which is almost meaningless) derails the point. The unacceptable. Given the slow pace but interesting topic, I wanted to skim the book. However, on three separate sittings, I found myself getting a terrible headache due to the extremely strong odor of (apparently) the Princeton printing. I have never before found a book to be offensively smelly (unless smoke-saturated), but this one is impossible to read. Because it is brand new, undamaged, and from Amazon, it seems unlikely to have been affected post-printing. So I returned it. Overall, the book's concept is good but expressed in a mediocre package. It would make a great op-ed piece or 20 page article, but -- as far as I could tell in my attempts to read it -- the approach taken wasn't enough to sustain an entire book.

In expressing thoughts in writing or speech, Wolin was always spectacular. Although this book isn't new, it's as apt today as it was written. I can think of nobody better to provide a framework for a political or philosophical thought or position and then express it. If Wolin isn't still revered among liberals (the current crop of "liberals") he should be. Didn't much like the sniping against one of my least favorite presidents, Dubya. I guess it's obligatory for liberals. BTW I had Wolin as a professor (for History of Political Theory) at Berkeley in one of the stormy semesters. I failed the course but remember much of it. In those days I had to support myself. Driving big trucks for 100+ mile trips tends to militate against attendance and homework. I wish I could turn back the clock and attend his lectures up there in the auditorium of the (then) chemistry building. This book should be mandatory reading for all new and wannabe continuing politicians including my neighbor, Senator Mark Begich. For a more comprehensive notion of the bases to accept, reject, or otherwise a political thought or position, one should consider reading "Politics and Vision" which is the best textbook I ever bought -- wtill have it.

This book is about the takeover of the public political system in the United States by private corporations - the ultimate hostile takeover, or maybe more of a friendly takeover given the close mingling of the public and private elites. In the author's words inverted totalitarianism "represents the political coming-of-age of corporate power". It is the triumph of market forces over democratic freedoms, the triumph of private over public. But what to do with all of those people who have the right to vote in elections? Well, democracy can be managed and voters can be roused from their state of apathy to cast their votes and then return to the apathetic norm required by inverted totalitarianism. Don't suppress democracy, that's too obvious, instead control it, manage it. Wolin does an excellent job of dissecting the corruption found in the American political system: lobbyists are now the main political actors - not citizens, not voters. Big business and big government are entwined in an incestuous embrace while we the people are left to go through the motions of perfunctory voting once every four years. Inverted totalitarianism is unlike classical totalitarianism (Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia). These earlier versions of totalitarianism mobilized the masses to show solidarity with one another and obedience to the Leader whereas inverted totalitarianism relies on a fragmented society of competitive individuals who are terrified of losing their jobs to cheaper foreign labour or losing their lives in a terrorist attack. A frightened, exhausted herd is much easier to manage. If people are working two jobs and just barely keeping their heads above water how are they going to have the time, energy or interest to become politically involved? If the elites can successfully manage the herd, they can get on with the business of "democracy" without having to explain things to the people. It's politics conducted in the style of the corporate boardroom and the takeover is complete. This review is of the paperback version which was published in 2010. The author includes a new preface in which he addresses the election of President Obama and its effect on inverted totalitarianism. His conclusions? I won't spoil it for you; it's a great read and I recommend it to everyone, American or otherwise. The book could have used some closer editing as it states that the Berlin Wall fell in 1987 (it fell in 1989) and that the Korean War took place from 1951 to 1954 (the actual dates of that conflict were 1950-1953). Minor details perhaps, but they should be pointed out even though they in no way detract from Wolin's reasoning.

An excellent book presenting a view of the United States of America from the perspective of one of Americas most trusted and competent historians and philosophers. Unfortunately, his view is not perceived by most Americans who are held in check either by their corporately owned, controlled and compliant media using cognitive dissonance and brain washing to deliver a biased, deceitful but righteous message of their country's purported politics. The USA Patriot Act and the nightmarish presentation of the unremitting terrorist threats presented to the world as a treat to their nations security has allowed the US constitution to be shredded without so much as a whimper from the electorate. America has no natural enemies, but nevertheless has a more powerful military than during the cold war just doesn't make any sense. A private banking cartel that actively engineers the near collapse of the world economy and maintains its innocence. The US statistics tells the real story:Twenty active aircraft carriers, a larger level of surveillance than anywhere in the world, 2.22 million army and military reservists, 800 overseas bases, a prison population of 2,228,000, 780,000 police officers, 16 security agencies where the richest 1% of the population have the equivalent wealth of the bottom 34.6%, an admitted military budget of $640 billion and a child poverty level of 23.1% next to Romania, the lowest in the world. A new form of Democracy called 'INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM'.

Impressive analysis for our contemporary political system in the USA emulated by many western "democracies"

es gibt kein richtiges leben im falschen sheldon wolin versucht es dennoch und es gelingt jetzt verbleiben nur noch zwei woerter.....

A paradigm shifting book. The more people read this book, the more hope there is for an end to the great source of tyranny in our time.